


my eyes don't shed tears, but boy, they bawl

by wafflesofdoom



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Coming Out, Family Fluff, Gen, M/M, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 09:44:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11145879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflesofdoom/pseuds/wafflesofdoom
Summary: they’re trying to spend more time together.or, robert comes out to victoria for the first time.





	my eyes don't shed tears, but boy, they bawl

**Author's Note:**

> brief mention of jack hitting robert in this fic.

They’re trying to spend more time together.

It was somewhere between Victoria splitting with Adam, and the middle of the summer, when Robert realised he hadn’t been making enough time for his little sister. He’d been sitting at the dinner table one evening, watching Aaron tease Liv over her new hairdo (Bernice, of course it was down to Bernice) and he realised he didn’t have that with Vic, not really, not anymore.

They'd grown apart, more than they even had been in the years Robert had spent away from the village, and he didn’t like it. Hated it, in fact. From the moment she’d come into his life, Victoria had been his favourite, his little sister all bright eyed and soft smiles from the moment his parents had brought her home.

He vaguely remembered getting to hold her, once. Victoria must have been a few months old, by then, because he didn’t remember their mum sitting next to him, making sure he was holding her properly.

No, she must have been a few months old. Robert remembered the overwhelming love he'd felt for her, as he’d held her, Victoria happily tugging on his finger. He remembered holding her, and promising that he’d be the best big brother in the world.

He hadn’t always been that, but he was trying, he was trying now. Robert had suggested their weekly get together (usually on a Tuesday evening, when Victoria wouldn’t be working) and over weeks, and months, they’d forged something so good between them.

She wasn’t just his baby sister anymore, she was his best friend, Victoria all bright eyes and soft smiles even now, decades on from that first day their parents had brought her home.

Victoria had always been the best of the Sugden lot.

“This is nice,” Victoria commented, glass of wine in hand as she settled back down on the couch, a packet of crisps and some chocolate tossed on the coffee table.

It was strange, really, how Victoria’s little cottage held so many bad memories, lonely nights and nightmares, all those weeks he’d spent here, terrified whoever had shot him was going to come and finish the job, but it was fast becoming one of his favourite places in the village.

It was probably because it was all Vic, pinks and blues and cosy blankets, a framed photo from his and Aaron’s wedding, the two of them and Diane, sitting pride of place on her fireplace.

“I got it from a client,” Robert admitted, one of Victoria’s cosy blankets pooling around his feet. He was wearing those ridiculous red trousers Aaron always made fun of, the colour clashing violently with the garish pink of Victoria’s couch. It should have made him feel out of place, but it didn’t, not anymore.

“Ooh, a client,” Victoria teased, a bright grin on her face as she sipped her glass of wine. They’d watched a film, a shockingly bad romantic comedy that Victoria had insisted would be good, the remains of the Dominos they’d demolished between them scattered across the floor.

It felt like all those teenage years of Victoria’s he’d missed out on.

“You know me,” Robert grinned, running a hand through his already messy hair. “Big successful businessman, and all that.”

“You are successful,” Victoria said, voice quiet, and kind. “You’ve done so much for Home James, since you bought in - and the scrapyard. You should be proud of yourself, you know? You did this all yourself.”

Robert thought about the endless meetings, Jimmy and Nicola grating on his nerves, the cramped days in a too hot portacabin, and the one person who’d kept him sane throughout it all. “I wouldn’t be half as successful without Aaron,” he admitted, a flush rising in his cheeks as he spoke.

It felt weird, sometimes, to talk about Aaron with his little sister.

Victoria glanced at her own now empty ring finger, a sad expression flashing across her face.

“I’m sorry,” Robert blurting, hating that anyone, especially him, was making his baby sister feel _sad_. Maybe he was biased, but Victoria deserved the world, and she deserved someone who was going to love her through the hard times.

He was tempted to smack Adam, when he saw him next.

“Don’t be,” Victoria shuffled, moving so her legs were sprawled across the couch, feet digging into Robert’s hip. “Just because Adam and I couldn’t make it work, doesn’t mean I’m not happy for you, Robert.”

Robert nodded, not quite sure what to say.

“I’ve never seen you like this before,” Victoria admitted, setting her wine glass down on the coffee table. Her hair was done up in ridiculous Leia-style space buns, and they bobbed from side to side as she spoke. “You seem so settled, you know? It’s really good to see.”

 _Settled_.

The one thing Robert had never been, not really. Maybe when he was a child, maybe when he was growing up, before Sarah died, before he'd had to face the world, and all his mistakes without a mum.

“I…..” Robert began, words failing him. He wanted to tell her, he did. Coming out to Aaron, it had felt like being set _free_. Having a word that defined him, explained who he was, it meant a lot more than Robert had ever thought it would, thought it could.

He’d spent so long adamant that he wasn't anything other than straight (straight, and willing to give anything a try he’d joked once) that the day he’d said he was bisexual aloud for the first time, trying out the new word in front of the bathroom mirror, Aaron nattering at him from their bedroom, it had felt like a new beginning.

It had taken him a month and a half to say it to Aaron, and then he’d say it twice in one day. Robert had been **terrified** , but as soon as he’d said it, said it to someone else for the first time, he’d felt _settled._

Victoria was looking at him intently, an open, easy expression on her face.

“I’m bisexual,” Robert blurted, too fast, half incoherent, but the proud smile on Victoria’s face as he spoke made it all worth it.

“I’ve never heard you say it,” Victoria said, fingers wrapped around Robert’s wrist in a  vice grip, as though she was trying to show him just how proud she was. “God, Robert - I am so proud of you.”

Robert wasn’t sure why he teared up, wasn’t sure why it all felt so overwhelming, but he did. The tears started to fall before he could really even stop then, giving an embarrassed laugh as he wiped at his eyes. “No one’s said that to me before, except Aaron,” he mumbled.

“I am,” Victoria said, sitting up a little straighter now, her expression firm. “Robert, I can’t even begin to understand how hard it must have been to be attracted to boys, in a village like this. Especially if you were worried about what dad would think, you know?”

His face probably said it all, Robert realised a second too late, Victoria’s brow furrowing.

“Did dad know?” Victoria asked, quiet, reassuring, careful.

Robert closed his eyes, memories flooding back all at once. It was as though he couldn’t stop the floodgates opening, when he’d think about that day, when he mentioned it.

Robert had loved his dad, for all his faults, all their problems - and maybe, maybe if Robert had explained, if he’d stuck around long enough to explain, if he'd been brave enough to explain, Jack might have understood, one day, he might have understood -

“Robert?” Victoria’s voice was gentle, as though she was worried he was going to break in two.

He wasn’t far from it, if he was honest.

“He knew,” Robert said, eyes still squeezed tightly shut. If he looked at her, if he saw the concern on her face, he would, he’d break, and he’d probably spent the next hour sobbing incoherently in his sisters arms.

No, that wouldn’t do.

Robert wanted to tell her this time, wanted her to know, wanted to stop carrying this secret with him every single day of his life, wanted to stop cringing every time Victoria would mention their father.

“I was fifteen,” Robert said, voice shaking as he tried to string together the words. “You probably don’t remember the farmhand we had, Tom. I - I brought him up to my room, and we were kissing. Dad walked in, and he, he -“

“Hey, it’s okay.”

Robert could feel Victoria’s hands on his face, stroking his hair back off his forehead, trying to keep him calm. “He leathered me,” the words burned his throat as he spoke, as he _remembered_ , remembered how he’d sat in the bath afterward, water cold, and he’d cried, and cried, heart aching and limbs heavy, his cheeks burning with shame.

“I’m sorry,” Victoria was hugging him now, strong arms slung around his neck. “God, Robert, I am so sorry you had to go through that alone.”

Robert’s eyes flew open. “You believe me?” the question was out of his mouth before he could stop himself, his biggest worry out there now.

Victoria gave him an incredulous look. “Robert, of course I believe you,” she exclaimed, wiping at his tears with the sleeve of her jumper. “Why would you make something like that up?”

Robert couldn’t stop his tears now, clinging to Victoria tightly as she rocked him back and forth, murmuring reassuring words in his ear. He wasn’t sure how long he cried for, really, but eventually he just cried himself out, those weird hiccup like sobs escaping his throat, Victoria still hugging him tightly.

“Sorry,” he began, voice hoarse.

“Don’t apologise,” Victoria shook her head, ever the mother figure as she wiped at his eyes, his nose, trying to get rid of the worst of his tears, and snot.

“I cried all over you.”

“What are sisters for?” Victoria beamed, passing him the half drunk bottle of water that was sitting on the coffee table, long since discarded in favour of wine. “I’m proud of you, you know.”

“What for?” Robert’s confusion was genuine.

“You dealt with all that on your own,” Victoria said. “Robert, that can’t have been easy.”

Robert shook his head. “I didn’t deal with it very well, not for a long time,” he said, thinking of the affair, thinking of all the men that had come before Aaron, all the one’s he'd refused to let himself fall in love with.

“But you did, in the end,” Victoria shook her head. “The way you stepped up for Aaron, last year during the trial - the way you do your best to support him. That’s what I’m proud of.”

Robert felt uncomfortable, thinking of all the things he’d done wrong, all the times he’d let Aaron down.

“But you know what I’m most proud of?” Victoria said, taking Robert’s left hand in her own, neatly painted pink nails running over the familiar metal of his wedding ring. “You married Aaron. You didn’t let what dad did, or said, ruin your life forever. You married Aaron, and you’re _happy_.”

“I am,” Robert admitted, choked up again. “I’m so happy, Vic.”

“Good,” Victoria beamed at him, all bright eyes and soft smiles all over again, goodness and kindness shining from every inch of her ( _she was definitely the best of the Sugdens._ ) “Because you deserve it.”

“What did I ever do to deserve a little sister as brilliant as you?” Robert said, giving her a real, genuine smile.

“As long as you keep bringing me expensive wine, I can keep being brilliant,” Victoria teased, reaching for her wine glass again.

Robert couldn’t help but tug her close, tucking her under his arm, like he used to do when they were kids, curled up on the sofa and watching Saturday morning cartoons, Robert keeping her happy until Sarah would get up, until Jack would come in from tending to the cows.

They were some of his best memories, the days he remembered from growing up at the farm, the two of them in their pyjamas and eating soggy cornflakes while reruns of Scooby-Doo would be on.

“Did I ever tell you about how I actually proposed to Aaron?” Robert inquired, remembering the conversation had been cut short in the hospital, and things had been such a whirlwind since.

“No!” Victoria slapped his his stomach, making Robert groan. “Robert Sugden, I demand all the details. Not the gory ones though.”

Robert made a face. “Theres a lot of things I never, ever intend to tell my baby sister,” he grimaced.

Victoria laughed, the sound filling the otherwise quiet living room. “Good, because theres a lot of things I don’t need to know about my big brother,” she said, reaching for the chocolate. “Was it properly romantic?”

“I think it’s probably the least romantic thing I’ve ever done,” Robert said, launching into the story.

Never, not in a million years, did Robert think he’d end up living in Emmerdale again, telling his little sister funny stories about the **_man_** he was married to, but, well -

it wasn’t a bad life in the end, was it?

 

 **fin**.


End file.
